A couple who noticed clothes and jewellery going missing discovered the culprit was their nanny after they spotted her wearing them on Facebook, a court heard. Before then, her employer Becki Cannings, 29, had not suspected nanny Pascale, as she was “one of the family”.

It begs the question, how can anyone trust a relative stranger to come into their home and look after the children, the house, the garden – or whatever – when cases like this exist? Pascale may have become "one of the family" but she clearly wasn't. And by the looks of things, Mr and Mrs Cannings are not the only ones to have experienced trouble with the staff.

The au pair nightmare

A father called Dan and his wife tell me they had a particularly disturbing experience after welcoming an au pair into their Ecclesfield home. They were hoping for an enlightening cultural experience for themselves and their young daughter. But instead, they got something else entirely.

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“She came to us via an au pair agency, and had been with us about a month,” Dan explained. “We got on fine, though she was clearly a little homesick.

“Over Easter, my wife, kids and I went away for a week. We left the au pair in charge of the house: filled up the larder and basically just said to relax and enjoy herself for the week. We also asked my mother-in-law to pop over and check that everything was OK.”

A scene from The Nanny Diaries

Dan’s mother-in-law found that no one would answer the phone at the house for days and when she came around, found the door to be double-locked. Eventually, she called the police, who came and gained entrance. Inside, says Dan, “they found the au-pair, not sure what all the fuss was about.”

The mother-in-law set about tidying up and checking on the home, but when she reached the loft bedroom nothing could have prepared her for what she encountered. “The au-pair had made herself a nest up there, as far from the front door as she could, and it was surrounded by crucifixes and trinkets,” Dan explains. “In the centre of which was a framed photo of me which she must have stolen from our bedroom.”

Upon hearing the news Dan, then 31, and his wife, 29, contacted the au pair agency and the girl’s parents, promptly arranging to send her home. “We thought that we'd heard the last of it,” says Dan.

Sadly not: “A week or so later we got a phone-call from police in London who had found her wondering the streets, uncommunicative, and the only contact details they could find on her were ours. They had to arrange to get her deported back to [her home country] for her own safety.”

The 'clumsy' cleaner

One North London woman tells me about a clumsy cleaner who accidentally smashed glasses and a clock, as well as singeing a shirt with an iron. Yet instead of confessing her slip ups, the cleaner decided to wait and see if she was found out, which she was. However, the 32-year-old employer puts the incidents down to “the perils of paying minimum wage”.

'Stealing from children'

'Thieving nannies'

Ananny in Chicago admitted to stealing $600(£357)from the wallets of children she was looking after. Alexandra Donohue, 22, was confronted by the father after noticing the money was missing and reported to police that she was the only one who could have taken it. She initially denied the crime but later confessed to police. The jury is still out on why the children were carrying $600.

'Wearing my slippers!'

A 67-year-old father in Kenilworth, Warwickshire was prompted to bin a pair of his own slippers after his cleaner casually mentioned just how comfy she found them. Apparently, she told him, she wore them every time she came around to work.

A not-so-handy handyman

A soon-to-be Hackney resident and his partner may already be the most hated people in the building even though they have yet to officially move in thanks to a bumbling plumber. The hired handyman was tinkering around in the flat when he put his foot through the floor, and therefore the ceiling of the home of the downstairs neighbours. “My wife and I haven't even moved in yet,” says the 31-year-old, “but it's safe to say they hate us.”

Moments later, Theresa’s partner received a call from the bank asking to authorise a cheque. ”I checked on Saturday morning and the check [sic] was clearly not our writing,” Theresa wrote. “She had [allegedly] taken it from Dominique’s checkbook [sic] and wrote herself an extra $250 … We contacted the police.”